Monthly Archives: March 2012

March-April, come what may the Buzz of this month is “Appraisals” in every Indian company. It’s time to showcase and highlight your work & achievement that you have accomplished throughout the year. It’s a busy time for all the three parties (employee, recruiter, HR) involved in this process. You should be well prepared with your feedback on the management, managers should be well prepared with their review, HR spends hour after hour to make sure your manager turns up with your performance evaluation on time. Year-end Merit based reviews are often matter of debate..For some this is a unique opportunity to cash in the mullahs 😉 And for some it’s a deciding factor to be in the system or out of the system. For Management it’s a risk factor, who stays & who leaves the organization.

Following is just an attempt to share the experiences that all the 3 parties undergo during this process:

A Life of an Employee during Appraisals:

– Tensed, Excited & hope…These 3 words are just somewhere close to their reaction during the appraisals. There is an Air of tension during appraisals, you may turn out to be a shining star or just be fitted as Average performer, No one knows about their ratings and the likely hike percentage to be announced. Even though things are in black and white every year we see some information floating around about the likely hike percentage and if the standard sounds good it either excites us or disappoints us.

– No matter whatever is the hike on the standards we are always hopeful of a good rating and hence a good hike considering the efforts we put in throughout the year. Employees get carried by the market standards, Content and Satisfied employees are the one who stays back and plan for coming year and there also arise a situation where discontent employees feel unhappy about their efforts not being paid off. It is said that this period is crucial as they might plan to switch jobs based on the ratings declared. Also the variable / bonus factor plays a major role in the life of an employee.

A Life of an HR during Appraisals:

– Accountability, Accuracy and meeting Deadline ….. Guess These 3 words are just somewhere close to their reaction during the appraisals.

– According to me, this month is the toughest of all for the HR folks. An HR is the face of the organization during this phase.While appraisals are usually done by immediate managers or supervisors, HR provides the necessary tools and procedures for the process.It’s they who sit with the employees along with their managers and reviews the performance rating, HR has to ensure that there is no disconnect whatsoever in the mind of the employee after the appraisal process is completed. It is HR’s responsibility to provide employees with consistent, fair evaluations.

– This is a high pressure period where in the HR has to keep a check on the events unfolding after the employees get to know about their ratings. If the ratings is as per their expectations (Humans are never satisfied and we are no different) then the HR can take a breather, but if it’s not good then it’s a major challenge for HRD team to come down with reasonable explanation.Also thanks to Bell Curve, there are always cases where the employee is not happy with his/her rating. So as a HR one has to ensure that the right kind of discussions are conducted , standard organizations also involve the delivery manager in this post appraisal discussion .This is normally the time when HR is in full demand and they become most indispensable part of the organization 😉 All of a sudden we remember our HR and just try to bombard with our grievances 😉

A Life of an Recruiter during appraisals:

– Numbers, Targets and closure ……These are the recruiter’s reaction during this phase; I guess it is all throughout the year

– Well this is my favorite part 😉 As this is a risky month for both Employer and employee, the management plans well in advance about the upcoming scenario (Attrition and fulfillment). This is the time when the Delivery Manager, Recruitment Manager and the Management brainstorm abort the probable positions which might go vacant and would need replacements. The Recruitment Team plays a larger role here to map the market and make sure there is no dearth of resource within the organization. Hiring team works in full swing to make up for the expected attrition figure and form a bench.

– I guess this is the most challenging month from hiring perspective. Almost everyone in the market has multiple offers to play with, this is further topped up by their hiked salaries. If their rating if decent enough their salary expectation is sky-high. To hire within budget seems like Everest which we climb. Nevertheless a challenge is what makes Recruitment the most interesting work in the industry.

Me sure you to might have loads of things to add about this amazing chain of events. Hoping that you might have experienced this at various stages of your life, as a Employee, as an Recruiter and if you lucky then as an HR too. 😉 Wishing all you all the best for the Appraisal Season 😉

Like this:

Do you remember your Klout score !! Do you share your Location via Foursquare (every time you move around) !! Do you Tweet about your Breakfast, Lunch, Coffee Break, Dinner !!! Do you manage to update your Facebook Status for every other small or big News!! Are you too Busy tweeting about the awesome time that you are having instead of living in the moment and avoiding eye contact with the person you are with ?? Do you keep surfing about what’s New in Social Media in market and how to master it!! Well if you do these things be careful, you might be termed as Social Media Addict!!!

So, Do you think you are a Social Media Addict!!! Are we all getting too dependent on Social Media that we have actually almost stopped interacting or meeting human beings for real! For some of us, including me it was really difficult to disagree to the above point, but it’s a fact. Social networks have changed the ways we interact with each other enormously. We most often end up spending more time sharing at our computer screens that actually getting up and having a short chat with our colleagues, friends, professionals etc. The concept of meeting people has changed completely over the period of time.

The dependency on virtual interaction than personal one has really gone high. It’s hard to believe that kids do end up discussing their project work via Social media. Just one post on Facebook and your get an instant reply. Are we saying that this is not a good practice… Well, no one is against the use of Social Media but one had to draw a line and have discipline while using such forum.

Few checks from our daily life to tell us whether we are social media addicts:

– Once we are up, the first thing that we tend to do is Check BBM Messenger / Whats Up / Mails / Facebook Messages / Tweets and so on.

– Some of us wake up in middle of night to see if we have mentions in Twitter

– Updating every small and big event across these forums, Status messages like “Time for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner, dating, outing and at times even crib about bad day!” is a must mention.

– You Check In via Foursquare or Places and announce your arrival/departure from various places be if office, school, home, any famous/Non famous restaurants and so on..

– Responding to all the comments, mentions on FB or Twitter within seconds, thanks to Blackberry and Android phones.

– Share random pictures, comment and like the moment pictures are clicked or shared within network!

– Search for new updates in this platform and master it in short while, like finding new tools for twitter stats , for FB and LinkedIn stats. Example being KLOUT.

– Most important, Feeling incomplete when we are out and not able to use this as if someone thing important is missing. – And then the same process will carry on till the wee hours 🙂

So in all this activities it’s really hard to find out the time you spent in interacting with real people (Outside your virtual world). As per my personal experience, Social interaction is good, it’s a platform where I have really enjoyed sharing news, blogs and personal opinion which ofcourse I might have not done when I met someone in real. I like to utilize social media to engage in social interactions, it’s just an alternative. Again the reason to write this post is not to say that using Social Media is bad, but the key is to be able to balance the use of this exciting form of interaction with all the other aspects of our lives.